Couldn't find it on-line, but his name is Abu Thar and he was interviewed in Fallujah by an Iraqi reporter. "We see the conflicting statements by (US leaders) on Iraq as another sign of their defeat," the paper quotes him.

So now Kerry is a traitor? That's a very large and well-greased slippery slope, my friend. What you're saying is that any public figure who speaks out against the war is aiding the enemy because it boosts their morale, correct?

So Kerry's choice is either support the President or aid the enemy? I would not be surprised if this story was hand-selected for dissemination by Bush's campaign.

_________________________
"I wish I had documented more…" said nobody on their death bed, ever.

I only saw the second half of the debates last night, and even then I wasn't fully focused on it. I did catch Edwards closing remarks though, which I thought were very well done. He did them in a way that he was talking to each person sitting in their family room (or whereever they were watching from) and the things he was saying were true, and just emphasized a change is needed. It's not the same seeing it in writing as it is as seeing him deliver it, but here it is anyway.

EDWARDS: "Thank you.

Thank you, Gwen.

Thank you, Mr. Vice President, for being here.

You know, when I was young and growing up, I remember coming down the steps into the kitchen, early in the morning, and I would see the glow of the television.

And I‘d see my father sitting at a table. He wasn‘t paying bills, and he wasn‘t doing paperwork from work.

What he was doing was learning math on television.

Now, he didn‘t have a college education, but he was doing what he could do to get a better job in the mill where he worked. I was proud of him. I‘m still proud of him.

And I was also hopeful, because I knew that I lived in a country where I could get a college education.

Here‘s the truth: I have grown up in the bright light of America.

But that light is flickering today.

Now, I know that the vice president and the president don‘t see it, but you do.

You see it when your incomes are going down and the cost of everything, college tuition, health care—is going through the roof. You see it when you sit at your table each night and there‘s an empty chair because a loved one is serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. What they‘re going to give you is four more years of the same.

John Kerry and I believe that we can do better. We believe in a strong middle-class in this country. That‘s why we have a plan to create jobs, getting rid of tax cuts for companies outsourcing your jobs; give tax cuts to companies that‘ll keep jobs here in America.

That‘s why we have a health care plan. That‘s why we have a plan to keep you safe and to fix this mess in Iraq.

The truth is that every four years you get to decide. You have the ability to decide where America‘s going to go. John Kerry and I are asking you to give us the power to fight for you, to fight to keep that dream in America, that I saw as a young man, alive for every parent sitting at that kitchen table."

PM - The issue is not talking against the war. The issue is his ever-changing position on the war. As I've said before, Kerry continues to prance around blasting the President on things that he previously supported. He continues to call the President a liar and distort facts to gain political points. The world is watching this and the terrorists are loving the show. What better than to watch a presidential candidate trash the President, the coalition, and the Iraqi interim government all in the same sitting? No one ever talks about the stories of Vietnam POWs having the words of Kerry showered over them during torture sessions, because it's too inflamatory for the media. Today, you won't hear the mainstream media bring up the point that Kerry's pathetic tactics are potentially fueling the oppposition and endangering our troops. I'll guarantee you this, they're watching and they're loving what they are seeing.

Zarak - As far as Edwards' closing statements go.....BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!! Edwards got his a$$ handed to him by the VP.....clean and simple. Edwards sat there all night spewing out the tired Dem rhetoric while Cheney confounded him with his level of knowledge on issues. When asked to make statements about himself without using Kerry's name at all, he couldn't do it....he did it twice and when he didn't use his name, he would talk about "we". It was pathetic. The man is completely unprepared for the job and it was evident. When asked about his level of inexperience and what makes him a viable candidate, he completely sidestepped the question and picked up his Kerry pom-poms. It was painful. If I didn't know better, Kerry was under the table feeding him lines or doing something else.

Cheney spoke in his normal dry tone, I'll give you that. However, the content of his dialog was much richer than his opponent's. You could tell over and over that he could continue his discussion for much longer than the alotted time...something you didn't see in Edwards. He pounded home what Bush couldn't in the debate. He pounded home a clean message that the Senate records of both Edwards and Kerry do not reflect the core consistent values and determination that is necessary to be commander and chief. He potently slammed Edwards for the fact that he has the worst absentee record in the Senate, which Edwards couldn't rebut....because he is a "minnie-me" of Kerry....a greesy politician at heart that is there not to get work done, but to forward his career.

When discussing taxes, Cheney eloquently clarified how many small-business owners file their taxes as personal income, which would imply that, while the Bush tax cut applied to middle income families directly, they also applied to small business owners which supply the majority of new jobs in this country. Edwards blew this off and returned with the normal tired argument about the rich people by the pool getting tax cuts.....completely inflamatory remarks meant to divert attention away from Cheney's effective point.

When Edwards was posed with the question of how he and Kerry would build this broader coalition when the French and Germans have already stated their strong intent not to take part regardless of the election outcome, he completely sidestepped it with pie-in-the-sky remarks about how success breeds cooperation....how success in Iraq would inspire them to participate.....blah blah blah. When asked about how they planned to bring about that success, he started by saying that Bush/Cheney offer more of the same and then he proceeded to blurt out exactly what Bush/Cheney have been moving towards all along.....again exposing that they have no plan, except to execute the Bush/Cheney plan.

At the end of the day, we have a VP that the libs love to hate, because they see him as a "Big Business" whore. What they won't admit is that he has more government experience than any VP or President in history. What they'll never admit is that his knowledge-base on both foreign and domestic affairs is astounding. What they definitely won't admit is that their VP candidate and even their Pres candidate do not have the basic understanding, the record, the consistency, or the experience necessary to hold the highest position in the free world.

The pathetic part is that the mindless drones out there in the world either tuned out or blindly cheered for Edwards because Cheney was not a picture of flambouyance. Our only hope is that those with a moderate level of intelligence and education listened hard enough to the substance of each man's arguments. If so, then they would have heard the same debate that I heard.

By the way Zarak, that last comment was not aimed at you for zoning out. I am speaking more in the general about our general public's MTV attention span and the relatively inept and uninformed electorate in this country....the ones that vote based upon how someone looks and not on the substance of their message.

Edwards got his A$$ handed to him? What debate did you see or has your partisanship completely clouded your judgement. 2 politicians spewing the party line-no surprises, nothing new, no winner, no loser. This so-called debate will prove inconsequential to this election. What scares me about the 2 VP wannabees is I've got the choice of a "big-business whore" or a politico with less experience than the ex-Governor of Texas-now President to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. It appears to me Bush is running a little scared this week-after the next debate is will probably be Kerry's turn to be slightly behind in the polls. The polls mean little until November.

i agree with jorge, it was a draw.. they both repeated the same things we heard from dubya and kerry during last weeks debate. there was NO clear winner, and that was the general idea on most of the talk shows after the debate.

i did find it interesting how cheney side stepped the new announcements made by the #1 US administrator in iraq, paul bremer, that they never had the proper ground force needed, and the entire war scenario was never properly planned or thought out by the govt. and, i seemed awful funny that rumsfeld has a press conference yesterday and announces that he himself hasnt seen a direct link between sadaam hussein and the al quida. ? WHAT???

it seems to me that the republicans are starting to buckle under the stress of their decisions.. and some people are starting to try and cleanse themselves of bush's inability to EVER admit he made a mistake. i really think the republicans are scrambling, it if kerry puts the heat on bush again in the next debate, its gonna get worse.

Turbodog1 wrote:
When discussing taxes, Cheney eloquently clarified how many small-business owners file their taxes as personal income, which would imply that, while the Bush tax cut applied to middle income families directly, they also applied to small business owners which supply the majority of new jobs in this country.

I told myself that I wouldn't get involved in politics here, as I get enough/give enough in other forums, but I thought I would throw out one small post as a small business owner:

Any business owner that is small enough to be filing their taxes as an individual is not at all likely to have a single employee... not to mention several. To think that the tiny Bush tax cut/refund would cause any employer to rush out and hire more employees is flat out wrong. The tax cut doesn't even touch the tens of thousands of dollars a year even a minimal part-time employee costs with salary and worker's Comp insurance, etc..

Those small businesses that supply so many jobs are often considered business' of sixty or even twenty employees or less... far, far beyond the situation where their taxes are filed as an "individual", i.e., as in "sole proprietor"...

First of all, it looks like Cheney was talking smack with the meeting Edwards for the first time comment. It was a solid punch, but foolish for him to throw knowing that the media was going to call him on it.

Zarak - Don't get me wrong on this. I wouldn't be saying this if I didn't believe it. I watched the pres debate and I'll fully agree that Bush got his A$$ handed to him. As I've said before, I am only a Bush fan right now because the other side put up a poor alternative. Give me a strong consistent moderate Democrat and I would have jumped onboard.

Jorge - I listened to that debate very closely. What I was hearing from both sides might have been what they've said before. I'll give you that. However, I was focusing on the substance of the remarks. On Cheney's side, I was hearing extensive knowledge on subjects and well thought out responses. On Edwards' side, I was hearing the same inflamatory pie-in-the-sky sound-bytes that we hear over and over. Cheney was thinking through his questions and Edwards was reading from a bullet-list in his head. This was very evident when a question was asked that fell outside of the norm. When hit with questions like that, Edwards would simply divert attention to another topic and when he didn't have enough to say, he'd tell some story to fill the time.

In the end, perhaps the debate wasn't a full win for the Bush/Cheney camp.....I'm not sure. The public has to judge that. On the core one on one debate between these two men, Cheney took Edwards to school. You could see his head spinning....or at least his hands shaking. Anyone would have had a rough time running up against that level of knowledge and experience.

BigJohn - Bremer is quoted as saying that this was his impression from being on the ground just after Hussein was ousted. The context of his comments was in relation to the looting and the lawlessness in those early days.....not in the context of the overall insurgence. Also, he said that he had asked for troops after that, but conceded that he was not as insistent as he could have been. Basically, he made a narrow statement that has been latched onto by the media as an indictment of the Administration as a whole, when it was merely his impression of a narrow point in time between the US arrival and the control enacted by both his team and the interim government.

As far as Rumsfeld's comments, he immediately followed by stating that he has consistently stated since 2002 that there were ties between Iraq and Al Quaida. Yes, he probably needs to clarify further on this one.

As far as scrambling goes on the Republican side, I don't see that. I see the left latching onto whatever minor soundbyte that they can find to give that appearance. To me, it seems like they are staying on task and getting the job done as best they can w/ the level of resistance they are seeing.

Mark - You may be correct in your analysis. I am not well-read on this topic. What I can tell you is that I don't lose sleep about cutting taxes on small and mid-size businesses. I work for a mid-size business and I am happy that Bush wants my company to have more money to spend on market expansion. If Kerry has his way, the government will suck more money from them, which in turn makes it harder for my department to get more headcount and equally hard for me to get a damn raise. No matter how he paints it, Kerry wants redistribution of wealth. The problem is that our economy doesn't work that way. The people that expand their companies to new markets, new products, and new arenas are the people that he is looking to penalize. The people that create innovation in this country, which in turn creates jobs and overall economic growth are the ones he wants to penalize. Yes, small businesses create jobs, but massive innovation, technology advances, and society-changing advances are products of all segments of the economy, including the dreaded "big business". Kerry doesn't get this....he sees the big companies as the enemy when they are the ones that are responsible for most of the great advances throughout our history.

There is one enemy in this ballgame and it's the government spend-hog that Kerry wants to run. Bush may be a bit out of control on his spending right now, but Kerry is the one openly advocating for increased government involvment/control, which in turn translates to increased spending, which in turn translates to increased taxes.